James Horner's plane crashes: A look at the composer's most famous work
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Molly Driscoll Staff writer
A plane belonging to Oscar-winning composer James Horner has crashed and the fate of Mr. Horner is currently unknown.聽
According to , a plane belonging to Horner crashed on June 22 and the pilot was killed. The identity of the pilot has not yet been made public. Meanwhile, Jay Cooper, who works as an attorney for Horner, told the AP, 鈥淚t was his plane and if he wasn't in it, he would've called.鈥�
Horner鈥檚 various acclaimed soundtracks include those for 1982鈥檚 鈥淪tar Trek: The Wrath of Khan,鈥� the 1989 film 鈥淔ield of Dreams,鈥� the 1995 movie 鈥淏raveheart,鈥� 1995鈥檚 鈥淎pollo 13,鈥� the 2001 film 鈥淎 Beautiful Mind,鈥� and the 2009 film 鈥淎vatar.鈥� Other recent work includes the 2010 remake of 鈥淭he Karate Kid,鈥� 2012鈥檚 鈥淭he Amazing Spider-Man,鈥� and the upcoming film 鈥淪outhpaw,鈥� which is coming to theaters this July. He frequently worked with directors such as Ron Howard and James Cameron.聽
Horner is likely most known for his work on Cameron鈥檚 1997 film 鈥淭itanic.鈥� In addition to the movie becoming a pop culture phenomenon and winning Best Picture as well as Best Director for the year, Horner won the Best Original Score Oscar for the soundtrack and the Best Original Song Oscar with lyricist by Will Jennings for Celine Dion鈥檚 song 鈥淢y Heart Will Go On.鈥澛�
Certain movie soundtracks can hit it big, especially those from movie musicals 鈥� according to , the soundtrack to 鈥淲est Side Story,鈥� to name one example, spent 54 weeks in the number one spot on the Billboard 200, a record that still holds today. But the 鈥淭itanic鈥� soundtrack stands among the biggest soundtrack successes ever in terms of both sales and how dominant a part of pop culture it became at the time. writer Brian Truitt wrote that 鈥溾�橫y Heart Will Go On鈥� grew as big as 鈥楾itanic鈥� itself.鈥� 鈥淚 think it was sort of at that point [when the song and album performed well on the Billboard charts] that I realized that the music had just transcended being film music and that 'Titanic' was really taking a place in history as an important cinema marriage, as opposed to being another run-of-the-mill movie,鈥� Horner himself told USA Today. Billboard writers Brad Wete and Jason Lipshutz noted of 鈥淗eart鈥� and the movie soundtrack album, 鈥淭he sweeping romance [movie] also produced an unsinkable (see what we did there?) pop single that highlighted its blockbuster soundtrack鈥� Despite being the only song on the soundtrack with vocals, 鈥楳y Heart Will Go On鈥� propelled the 鈥楾itanic鈥� soundtrack to sales of 10.2 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan.鈥�
